Willie Green talks zone defense, defensive rebounding | Pelicans Practice 3/3/2024

Willie Green talks zone defense, defensive rebounding | Pelicans Practice 3/3/2024

Guys had uh six games in nine days there how nice is it to just like you know have a little time between this one have a little time between the one on Friday it’s really nice um a good time for us to took it we took a day off yesterday

Everybody got a chance to recover get a little rest fill your cup spend time with your families and had a really good practice today and we’ll have another practice tomorrow and and fly to Toronto so the timing couldn’t be be any better you guys did a lot of good things on

Both sides of the ball in Indiana just what what did you like about you know that effort overall I like the fact that we had a really good bounce back playing those guys on their home floor giving ourselves a chance of winning but coming up short then coming

Home and our defense set the tone uh we mixed up our coverages on them kept them off Rhythm didn’t allow them to get out in transition herb Jones set the tone right away by set the tone offensively and uh it was a fun game to be a part

Of I was you guys ran a lot of Zone that Indiana game why do you feel like that’s been like an effective kind of like look you guys have gone to this season we we’ve been successful at it it takes teams out of their pattern and

Rhythm and then we can match up in that zone as well so we just like what it’s what it’s doing for us defensively and it’s it’s giving us a different look against uh our opponents and it’s working seemingly the only glaring negative from that game was you gave up

17 offensive rebounds Indiana and that’s kind of been an issue in February you guys really dropped off compared to what you were doing earlier in the year and Herb said really just comes down not having the breakdowns and everybody boxing out is it really just as simple

As that just cleaning some things up to make sure everybody’s you know crashing the defensive glass it is and it’s something that we’ll continue to talk about get on the floor and work on but it’s a mentality shot goes up I’m not letting this guy get it and I’m going

Back and helping my teammates if they’re in a bad way under under under the basket and things like that but you know it happens throughout the course of the Season where you know you’ll grow in certain areas and you have some slippage in some areas and this is an area that

We we got to tighten up and how important is it to do that especially for your small ball units does that will that dictate how much they play but based on how well they’re rebounding it is when we go small we we have to have the mentality of toughness being

Physical we’re playing fast but we have to finish possessions in order for the ball unit to work to work to our advantage her like to brag about himself but where would his team be her herb is a big part of this team you guys see it um his impact on our on the

Floor is tremendous and know he makes his go defensively he’s taken more ownership on the defensive side he’s playmaking on the offensive side so you know without herb Jones uh we’ll have to figure it out but we’re glad we got him if herb doesn’t make first team our defense feeling the

Block I don’t know who is all te team First Team all defense if it’s not her Jones he’s one of the best in the league and I think the beauty in it is that the guys that he plays against his peers they understand that and

Um you know when you have one of the guy best guys defensively he he should be rewarded for that coach we talk about her defensively obviously but offensively he’s putting up career numbers last game I thought you put him in the short roll you starting to trust

Him way more offensively now putting him in certain spots he’s hitting Corner threes short rolling hand on the ball that stuff yall are just talking with him we are we’re putting him everywhere he’s handling the ball at times he’s setting screens know teams are trying to put their so-called you

Know worst defender on him and we’re putting him in action so they can’t hide guys and he he can pick it up wherever we wherever we put him on the floor he picks it up quickly and uh it’s great to see her play with this type of

Confidence and you know he puts the work in so it’s it’s refreshing it’s rewarding and we’re all happy to see him play the way he is and our team have success at the same time from your couple decades since you’ve been a player and a coach now how rare is it to

See the Improvement that he’s made as far as his shooting go from you know even coming out of college he wasn’t considered an offensive player now he’s shooting 405 % from when when you when you put the work in that herb does and Coach Fred vinon and Coach Aaron miles they’re here every

Day first ones in the gym you know it’s to be expected that he’s going to get better and um you know you want that from all of our we want that from all of our players is to continue to put the work in trust the work that you’re doing and then have

Confidence when you get on the floor that when you’re open for those shots and it’s your shot you take do you recall ever seeing somebody that you’ve been around that’s been able to make the the leap that he’s made as far as his shot I mean not off the top of my head

But I definitely had teammates that you know they had areas that might have been weak areas for them that they worked on and they’ve come back and they’ve they’ve been better and better at it sometimes it’s shooting um sometimes it’s ball handling it could be a number of different concepts within the game

But when you put the work in that herb does you you have no no other choice but to get better and uh know I’m I’m we’re all fortunate to have him here will Larry have community service event today doing something with hunger and all that

What kind of impact does he had not just on his team but even the community what kind of mean to have a guy like that know back toity it means a great deal uh what what our guys do what Larry’s doing today you know taking time

Out of his day taking time out of his family’s day to to impact the community here um he’s a leader and his leadership goes a long ways it goes it’s here in the community it’s here on our team it’s in Cleveland it’s in any City that he

Plays in um just speaking to him about it it’s kind of it’s refreshing to have a number of guys on our team that take a lead role in the community and I’m sure the people here they they appreciate it and we all do and you know we want our

Guys continue to know find their platforms figure out what it is that they can do to help and as long as we’re we’re doing things like that know we all rally behind them a lot of the teams like you guys that are defending at a really high level this year are giving

Up a lot of Threes And if you look at the bottom a lot of Team some of the teams that are struggling actually are like trying to take threes away do you do you think there’s anything to that of like you know I think like I guess it

Doesn’t make I guess to fans maybe it doesn’t make sense of like you know they think the three-point shot is so important but like is there anything to that of like we give up a lot of Threes but you’re defending at a really high level and the opposite can be true

Too yeah I think I definitely think that there’s something in it um you know our our goals are to take away transition easy opportunities take away paint opportunities and if we’re all packed if we’re packed in the paint and they kick it out it’s easier for us to get out and

Test shots when a team has you scrambling they getting dunks they getting layups they’re getting transition points they’re going to get threes as well and that’s when you know it’s it’s hard to win those games but if we can take away free throws take away easy baskets take away paint scores you

Know we feel like we can get out and contest at a high rate at the three-point line and the way you guys play on defense it’s like a lot of it’s a lot of help right and correct me if I’m wrong like you have to be in shift I

Mean how do you coach that how do you like do that at a high level it might be the only way to play defense in this league now it’s it’s to help each other it’s hard to play one-on-one defense guys are extremely talented you know the

Way the game is called that you can’t use your hands as much so you got to rely on team defense help defense is what we work on every day in practice and that’ll we we feel like teams are going to shoot threes no matter what we

Do our goal is to try to contest them at a high rate will with everybody able to go through practice today they were everybody went through practice today yeah

New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green’s post-practice interview on Sunday, March 3, 2024 at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center.
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New Orleans Pelicans Roster
———————————————–
Jose Alvarado #15 Guard
Dyson Daniels #11 Guard
Jordan Hawkins #24 Guard
Brandon Ingram #14 Forward
Herbert Jones #5 Forward
E.J. Liddell #32 Forward
Naji Marshall #8 Forward
CJ McCollum #3 Guard
Trey Murphy III #25 Guard
Larry Nance Jr. #22 Forward
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl #50 Forward
Matt Ryan #37 Forward
Dereon Seabron #0 Guard
Jonas Valanciunas #17 Center
Zion Williamson #1 Forward
Cody Zeller #44 Forward-Center

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